Data seem sometimes to have their own life and will, and they refuse to behave as we wish.
Then, you need a firm hand to tame the wild data and turn them into quiet and obeying pets.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

21st century presentation technology at Percona Live

After 15 years of slide show technology, I thought that we need to change the way we do presentations. And since I am advocating radical changes, I will eat my own dog food and be the first to present a MySQL session using 3D technology.

Since watching Avatar a few years ago, I thought that using this technology would make my presentations truly amazing. However, two years ago a 3d projector was prohibitively expensive. Now, instead, it is affordable, and fits in my briefcase!

What I needed, though, was a compelling reason for using 3d vs. traditional presentations. And I found it. As I have mentioned recently, I am working with the coolest replication technology on earth. Explaining this technology is often challenging. While regular replication is easy to represent in slides, star and fan-in topologies are hard to grasp for the average attendees. But with the help of 3d technology, the concept looks easy and reachable.

For this reason, I have convinced my company to invest a few thousand dollars in this technology and I am now ready to replace the regular projector in ballroom "C" with the new machine. Sure I will need to drill a few holes in the floor (BTW, thanks to the San Francisco MySQL User Group for lending me the tools), but the result will be fantastic!

I don't want to spoil the surprise, so no more details will be available until you see the result on Tutorial Day.